Letter from the Dean

Dear Pepperdine Law Alumni and Friends:

The joys of the holiday season approach and remind us of our many blessings. Topping my list are the friendship, generosity, and support that all of you provide to me and to the Pepperdine Law School. At this time of year, we ask you to reflect on the role that this law school has played in shaping your lives and in forming a new generation of Pepperdine lawyers who continue to model lives of purpose, service, and leadership for the legal profession, their communities, and the world. Now, we need your help. This year’s Waves of Giving campaign comes at a time when the law school is challenged to meet the changing demands of the profession and to assist our students in every way we can.

The Pepperdine Law School has had a remarkable year. In a year when applications nationwide were down dramatically and many law schools were forced to cut their entering class size, we enrolled a full and talented first-year class whose indicators and scores are substantially the same as in recent years. The Business Insider ranked us twenty-ninth in its list of the fifty best law schools in the United States. The Princeton Review ranked us fifth for best professors and tenth for quality of life. The Blakely Advocacy Institute rated our moot court programs fourteenth in the country. We added several distinguished faculty members who bring national attention to the quality of our faculty. We have made significant curricular changes and added a talented new Director of Clinical Programs in our ongoing response to calls throughout the profession for experiential and “practice-ready” training. In short, this law school is continuing its remarkable trajectory of national prominence.

Your help is critical to our ability to continue the pattern of excellence that characterizes this law school. My highest priorities for funding are:

Student Scholarships to continue to attract qualified, diverse students and to reduce student costs

Advocacy Programs to allow us to continue to be national leaders in trial and appellate advocacy

Building Improvements to renovate and modernize our building to keep us competitive for students and faculty

Faculty Research and Scholarship to elevate the standing of the law school within the profession and among our peers

Dean's Excellence Fund to give us the ability to respond rapidly and effectively to opportunities, needs, and challenges

Along with these priorities, I hope you will consider making a gift to the newly-initiated Professor Janet Kerr Scholarship Fund. Professor Kerr retired this past summer. She has been one of Pepperdine Law’s most beloved faculty members. As she takes emeritus status and continues to serve on our Board of Visitors, we honor her service with an endowed scholarship fund in her name. She has touched so many of your lives. This is a way for us to continue her legacy for future students. We hope you will join us in this tribute.

Please be part of all we are doing to continue to strengthen this law school and serve our students. We pledge to be worthy stewards of the blessings of your generosity.

Sincerely, Deanell Reece Tacha Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean

Here are a few ways your gifts to Pepperdine Law are already making a difference in our students’ lives:

I was genuinely concerned that I would be unable to pay rent through the time required to prepare for the California Bar Examination, but you have made it possible for me to know that I will have housing during that time. For this reason, I literally cried when I learned I was receiving the scholarship money. – S.C., class of 2013

My father was recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma and underwent an invasive stem-cell transplant and subsequent chemotherapy. The added burden of Pepperdine’s tuition to the already extensive medical costs put a great strain on my family’s financial situation. The generous award of this scholarship has not only helped ease that burden, but has essentially allowed me to continue as a student at Pepperdine. – L.Y., class of 2014

This scholarship will take some of the financial sting out of the cost of attending law school, as I am almost entirely on loans, come from a low-income family and anticipate working for the government, which does not pay nearly as well as the private sector. Nonetheless, I am committed to pursuing the cause of justice and living up to the charge in Isaiah 1:17 to "seek justice, defend the oppressed, take up the cause of the fatherless, and plead the case of the widow." – S.O., class of 2014